I just read that Yahoo is shutting down Delicious. Despite the fact that now I have to find another way to keep all my bookmarks online this raises another interest question:

Do you trust the Cloud?

Everyday there are services that are shut down, like it happened with Geocities and is probably going to happen with Google Wave, but when it happens with popular services the disappointment is even higher.

Everybody is using Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Mail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Flickr, Vimeo (and probably now a lot more will use Google Bookmarks), some just for fun, but some of these online free services are becoming are so deeply integrated with our life and work that will be difficult to replace them in case some their owner decide to shut them down.

To be cloud-shutdown proof we should make a list of all the “free” services we are using and that we really rely upon, and always have a backup plan to face the event one of them gets shut down or becomes unusable.

This is easier said than done, but if you sit down and plan ahead, this will save you a lot of time and panic when Google decide to shut down GMail (yes, it’s not a mistake, Google will shut down GMail, maybe in 10 year, but it will happen).

Moving away from Delicious

But now, how to solve the immediate problem of replacing Delicious? Here are some links I found that might help:

Comments on this entry:

#re: How to replace Delicious, aka Do not trust the cloud and always have an escape plan.

I think the reason why you should not trust the "cloud" is that you aren't in control of ANYTHING. It is not only the chance that some service could shut down but also the possible change in the terms of service and the property of your contents. I guess Stallman had some good points in his recent statement about the "cloud".

#re: How to replace Delicious, aka Do not trust the cloud and always have an escape plan.

#re: How to replace Delicious, aka Do not trust the cloud and always have an escape plan.

Looks like the main problem once again is lack of unified standard causing problems when trying to import/export bookmarks.

What comes to alternatives like Linkman, I wonder if it let you share your bookmarks? What made (and still makes) del.icio.us so attractive is not onnly tags but also possibility to share your bookmarks.

Then the question of whether I trust the cloud... Well, I have to, because there's always some cloud to rely on. Either it's bookmark service, browser, or network provider. Any of those can suddenly abandon their customers/users, which only means we need to have some backup plans for all of them.